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Chapter 39 - Volcanic Activity (CitC)
"The ship's listing heavily to the right, Darius!" Parin cried from her position at the back of the bridge, in front of the many control panels of the airship. Darius winced as they blazed past a castle tower, nearly taking it out. Upon losing the prisoners in a flash of lightning, the three Koopan airships pushed forward from Forever Forest and launched a vicious attack on the other four airships. Loaded with Clubbas, Darius thought that they would be able to put up a fight, but the Koopas were infinitely more experienced in this type of combat. "I know!" Darius shot back, standing on his tippy toes and forcing the yoke to the left. "We're taking heavy fire from Roy's airship!" Having never flown an airship before, all Darius could do was pull the yoke in the direction he wanted, and pray that the airship reacted accordingly. The balls of his feet were beginning to hurt from standing on his toes, but that was the only way he could reach the handles. The windshield in front of them showed the dreary scene, with the gloom from the clouds shrouding overhead interrupted by only the flashes of light of the fight. The Clubba Castle had been left defenceless by three of the four airships, with only Larry's airship, which Lukki had been in control of, still hovering awkwardly near the castle. "Come on! FIGHT BACK!" Darius cried to no one in particular, for the Clubbas on the decks below had no way of hearing him. Blow after blow rocked the ship, but from what he could tell, the Koopa Kingdom hadn't started firing their more violent weapons - Super Scopes, lasers, plasma cannons - because when they did, the airship would not weather as many of those blows. With the panels in front of Parin flashing blood red and various warnings and alerts popping up on them, she couldn't help but be worried on the verge of being sick. When the prisoners vanished from the airships, they had hardly any time to react before the Koopas were upon them. The loading process had been halted midway, with Aaron joining Shazam aboard the bridge of Wendy's airship, but Lukki was left alone with next to no Clubbas aboard his ship. All the other ships would be able to put up a fight and defend themselves somewhat, but her boyfriend would be all alone. * Tubba leapt up in the air, over the tombstones, rearing back and then attempting to smash Karubba's club against the wooden part of Clubbette's own, hoping to break the lighter club with the sheer force. She was ready for the attack, holding her club firm with both hands, she made sure that Karubba's club contacted the heavy part of her club, sending Tubba recoiling away with sparks flying from their weapons. The airships blazed above them, no longer visible in the thick clouds and darkness, but the wind and sand being thrown up in their wake was the smoking gun. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Clubbar leaning on his club, looking rather bored and unperturbed by the magnamity of the situation. Well, I guess he did indicate he'd leave this battle to me. Tubba met Clubbette's attempted swipe at his head with a one-armed right parry, and then spun around and delivered a kick to Clubbette's ankles with his left leg. Clubbette, unperturbed by the blow, attempted more swipes to Tubba's head, all of which were blocked. Likewise, when Tubba tried to deliver a blow, Clubbette held fast and blocked every attempt. After yet another defused attempt, Tubba charged forward like a raging bull, head low and shoulders forward, aiming to contact Clubbette in the belly scales and knock her to the ground. Clubbette was equal to the task, sidestepping Tubba before delivering a hefty blow to his backside that sent him flying into the tombstones in front of Bubba's, knocking them over in a spray of sand. Leaping to his feet, slightly shaken from the impact against various shapes of rocks, Tubba braced his club again, glaring at Clubbette across the sands. Time to use electricity and end this battle. Concentrating with all his might on Clubbette's face and willing a shot of electricity to race from his fingers, Tubba let the jagged bolt of lightning flow from his fingers to Clubbette in a uninterrupted stream. His left arm shaking from the electricity coursing through it, he was ready for Clubbette to vanish in a flash of electricity, and be thrown backwards and knocked out. Rather, his half-sister put her club's head in the path of the stream of electricity, crouching behind it, while splitting the bolts of electricity around her in all directions, so that while the air and sands around her got scorched, she remained perfectly unhindered and undamaged, protected by her club. When Tubba cut off the stream, panting from the sheer effort, she was smiling insolently. "Magically-enchanted metal. The perks of having a brilliant Mage as a friend, I think. Your electricity does nothing, Tubba." Tubba barely believed her, confident she must be bluffing. Yet, when he fired shot after shot of small electrical balls at her, all were deflected easily by the club as if they were nothing more than baseballs, to be hit as far as they could. In fact, a few of the electric balls shot back at Tubba, and it was all he could do to avoid them. "It does nothing, Tubba!" Clubbette shouted in glee as Tubba halted his next barrage, drained and exhausted from firing all the electric shots at Clubbette. "You can't rely on those underhanded tactics. You'll have to beat me, club to club." * Lukki raced across the bridge from various warning signals to the yoke and back again. Not a single Clubba had boarded his airship before the assault began, and those who were left in the Castle were now too afraid to join him. Cursing at them, Lukki had tried to accelerate the airship away from the Clubba Castle, but all he had managed to do was send it in the general direction of the battle at a steady pace. He could control the direction, but the hefty acceleration required to make him a difficult target was likely started in the engine room. Still, he had to work with what he had. There were throttles on the bridge, but the acceleration wasn't exactly mind-blowing. As he approached the battle, he could see the Bob-ombs and Bullet Bills framed in the explosions flying from ship to ship, including Iggy's airship. He knew Parin was on there. It was engaged in a mini-battle with Roy's airship, yet Lukki noticed that didn't mean it was invulnerable to attacks from the airships of Morton and Ludwig, who were also engaged in battles with Junior's airship - controlled by the Boo Sisters, Dibby and Xavier - and Wendy's airship - Shazam and Aaron - respectively. His instinct was to race to Parin's side and fight beside her. Yet, her airship didn't seem to be in too much danger; Shazam and Aaron were in a much worse position. Xavier, Dibby and the Boo Sisters were winning their battle against Morton's airship, so Lukki figured that they didn't need help. I wonder where Clubbette is in all of this. Lukki wondered as he glanced at Ludwig's airship - last he heard, Clubbette had been aboard that airship. She was part of the plan, so Lukki couldn't quite grasp why Ludwig's airship was still a Koopan airship. Floating in his cloud as he controlled the yoke, Lukki was closing in on the battle. To his horror, however, before he could reach the battle and even join the fight, a blue missile flew from one of the cannons of Morton's ship, and contacted the wooden hullside of Iggy's ship, sending it into a vicious downward spiral to the sands far below. Smoking from the end, Lukki guessed that the airship wasn't terminally struck, especially after it began to righten it's horrifying descent, but it was critical. Sheer rage overtook him as he realized that Morton's airship was still firing Bullet Bills and Bob-ombs at the injured airship. Parin. That was the only thought that flashed into Lukki's mind as he unconsciously pushed the throttles up to the maximum he could, and set a collison course for Morton's airship. They would pay. They would all pay, for attacking his girlfriend. * "Shazam! We're out of ammo!" Aaron cried to the Snifit in control of the yoke. He had been racing back and forth between the bridge and the lower levels, with the Clubbas manning the weapons. None of the Clubbas were skilled enough to handle the big computers with plasma cannons and Super Scopes, but all of them were very good at chucking Bob-ombs or Bullet Bills on the manual cannons and sending them flying. The issue now was that they were completely out of the classic forms of weaponry. Shazam sighed. "I hoped this day would never come. Put me in the cannon!" "I'm sorry, what?" Aaron had been expecting a left-field solution from Shazam, but Aaron wasn't quite sure that he understood what Shazam was implying. "You're serious?" "Where humans have their livers that create bile, Snifit's have livers that create ammo! I can be launched and I can nail Ludwig's airship with plenty of shots!" Shazam explained, not taking his eyes off the battle in front of them. The ship was rocking with every blow, yet it was holding it's own, even against the charged up Super Scope blasts. "And then you fall to your death?!" Aaron exclaimed. He wasn't normally loud and outspoken, but this plan was bordering on insanity. "What good would your tiny cannonballs even do to that giant thing?!" He angled his eyes multiple times at the windshield, where the stern of Ludwig's airship was visible. Before Shazam could even think of a response, a streak of light sliced the sky slightly above and to the right of them, framing the clouds with their light. In the next second, fire blazed. What looked like the wreckage of two pairs of airship plummeted rapidly toward the ground. Shazam realized that the airships in the midst of combustion were falling right at them. Pulling the yoke heavily to the left, he breathed a sigh of relief as the main hull of the two airships missed them, with only tiny pieces of shrapnel hammering down on the roof above them, sounding awfully like hail. "What even was that?" Shazam asked Aaron after the immediate crisis had been avoided. Rightening the airship, he once again set it so that the stern of Ludwig's airship was the most visible thing in the windshield. "It's Lukki!" Aaron realized with shock, widening his eyes in disbelief. "He just... he just..." "Crashed his ship into Morton's," realized Shazam. "Did he at least kill them?" A white bolt of lightning split the sky again in the general direction of the pieces of wreckage far below their sights. Yet another clap of thunder and lightning echoed directly in front of them, showering them in white light, indicated what had just happened. "Ludwig teleported them onto his ship again," groaned Aaron. "Perfect." Shazam realized that Aaron was right. Although he wondered how long Ludwig could keep teleporting people en masse aboard his ship, because the Koopas were not retreating, he guessed that it meant Ludwig backed himself to do it again, if only one more time. As he began to think of a way to solve their ammo issue that didn't involve flinging him into to space, he saw Iggy's airship rise from the depths of the clouds below, sending hope flaring through his body. "Lukki's sacrifice hasn't been in vain!" Shazam realized. "Darius and Parin have just got up from that shot by Morton's airship! Just pound the computers that control the plasma cannons and such! Something will happen! It's three on two!" * Tubba leapt over a shockwave as best he could. As he landed on the ground again, the back end of the wave caught him, throwing him backwards and into more headstones. Neither blow was particularly painful, but he had to leap up to his feet again as fast as he could, for Clubbette was bearing down on him from the darkness. They had battled nonstop since Tubba's failure to defeat Clubbette with electricity. The useage of electricity had left him so drained that it was all he could do to parry and block Clubbette's strikes, often failing and wearing a blow on his now-mutilated right forearm. Scales littered the sand below, mixing with patches of blood. Tubba knew that it was an ominous sign that the majority of scales were red, with only a few light-blue ones scattered across the ground. The wreckage of Larry's and Morton's airships had crashed a few hundred feet away from them, just beyond the graveyard complex. Burning violently in the dark battlefield, they gave both combatants new light to work with. Clubbette had her back to it, so all Tubba saw was her silhoutte against the flames. With the clouds above them showing no signs of departing, and night coming on fast, Tubba knew that a lack of light could not be an excuse for losing the battle. Clubbar still stood at the side of the battle, watching the battle, but resolutely not offering Tubba aid. This gave Tubba renewed hope, for his longtime mentor and advisor felt he could still win the battle without intervension. With every jarring strike of his club, every swipe with his limbs, Tubba examined Clubbette's eyes for signs of weariness. Rather, her dark orbs still burned with fury underneath her messy hair, lending strength to every blow she delivered to Tubba. Bleeding heavily from his right forearm, Tubba ducked under a punch from Clubbette's left arm, leapt over the club sweeping the ground afterwards and met Clubbette's attempt to kick him with a kick of his own, precariously balanced after landing from the leap. Roaring and grunting with effort, Tubba regained his balance and unleashed a barrage of blows at Clubbette, only for all of them to be blocked by the blur that was Clubbette's club, and then to be knocked backwards by a muscular punch at his already damaged belly by Clubbette's free left arm. Heaving his protesting arms into action again, he barely blocked a hit from the forward-advancing Clubbette, her momentum forcing him to take several steps backward. Teetering on his legs and desperately thrashing his tail for balance in an attempt to hold his ground, Tubba realized that he was a millisecond away from falling heavily to the ground. Flailing his arms wildly and abandoning all pretence to block Clubbette's next attack, Tubba was left helpless to a club upward from his belly to his jaw, throwing him backward, Karubba's club flying from his hand. Contacting the ground roughly on his shell, Tubba skidded to a halt after hitting against a headstone. Before he could roll back to his feet, Clubbette had already covered the newly-created distance between them and pinned him down, thrusting her left hand against his forehead, pinning his head against the ground awkwardly, while relying on her body weight to keep him down, her right hand holding her club in the air. "I'm going to kill you, Tubba." Clubbette informed him, her hand gripping his hair roughly. "You are going to die. Any last words?" "Clubbar! Help me!" Tubba twisted his head awkwardly to the right and shouted at the elderly Clubba still milling at the side of battle. His expression stayed bored, and he gazed at Tubba as if he could not see who was there. Come on, Clubbar! There's no point in waiting! "Help me!" Tubba bellowed again, desperate to get Clubbar to help him. "CLUBBAR!" Tubba roared one last time, his heart sinking as Clubbar stayed put. "So, the great Tubba's last moments are spent crying for help," Clubbette's voice oozed satisfaction as she held her club up even higher. "Goodbye, Tubba. I only wish I could have done the same to our father, the bastard he was." A red mist descended over Tubba's eyes, sending fiery rage pounding through him. As Clubbette attempted to bring the club down on his head, Tubba waited for when the weight of her lower body left his legs as she leaned forward, before kicking wildly with his red-scaled legs, pushing Clubbette up and off him prior to delivering the fatal blow. Regaining his feet and picking Karubba's club off from the sands a few paces away, Tubba felt more incensed than ever. "How dare you insult our father?!" Tubba howled in fury, swinging Karubba's club like a madman as he approached. "How-dare-you!?" He punctuated each word with an attempt to hit Clubbette, all of which were barely parried. "Our father was a great Clubba!" Livid, Tubba knocked aside Clubbette's club from her fingers, the anger making his exhaustion pale into insignificance. "You-don't-deserve-the-Blubba-name!" Swipe after swipe, the heavy head of Karubba's club contacted parts of Clubbette, sending scales, blood and skin flying. With one final blow, Tubba smashed Karubba's club against Clubbette's belly, sending her to the ground and making her hit her head roughly against a polished headstone. Leaping in the air, Tubba brought the dangerous end of the club below him, bringing himself to thrust the Killer Clubber into Clubbette's insides. In a split second, he twisted away from Clubbette, feeling his fury dissipate. He landed roughly on his belly beside the ragged and defeated Clubbette, her breaths coming in heavy pants and gasps as she leaned back against the headstone. She was in no position to fight. Gaining his feet and standing in front of his shabby-looking and defeated half-sister, he said one word: "Go." "Why?" Clubbette asked, bleeding from many places, staining the sand red. "Never mind. I don't think our father would want to see this." And maybe I can forgive myself about Bubba. "Just, get out of here!" Tubba turned his voice sharp, remembering who he was talking to. Kinship may save you today, but I never want to see you again. "Scram! Leave!" * "We're winning this fight!" Xavier cried in delight, punching the air. "They're being beaten back!" Behind him, Dibby, Meloetta and Skeloetta were handling the various control panels that indicated the airship was in working control. The clouds around the battlefield were dissipating, and Roy and Ludwig's airships were heavily damaged and smoking, beset by three other airships. Parin and Darius managed to stay afloat, Aaron and Shazam had overcome their ammo troubles, and the four aboard Junior's airship were never going to lose the battle with Roy, having managed to be evenly matched with the burly Koopaling's airship the whole battle. "One more shot, guys!" Xavier said excitedly. An orange Super Scope ball erupted from the cannons of Wendy's airship, Shazam and Aaron no doubt behind it, crashing into Roy's airship. Bullet Bill after Bullet Bill pounded the hull of the airships, sending shrapnel and splinters flying through the sky. Pinpricks of starlight were poking through the clouds as Roy's airship made a harrowing downward dive, falling to the sands of Gusty Gulch. "They're retreating!" Meloetta exclaimed as Ludwig's airship began to turn around, Roy's airship doing the same far below, "We've won!" "Eat it, Roy! That's how a BANDIT does things! We may not have as much genetics flowing in our favour as you, BUT WE CAN SMASH YOU ANYDAY!" Xavier could not stop punching the air as if it had done a wrong to his family, leaping up and down in delight, even cracking his mouth into a smile. They had chased the Koopas off Clubba land, and someone was going to be paid in a big way. * Tubba had always carried guilt over the deaths of Bubba and his father. His father had died to save Bubba, and a day later, Tubba made that sacrifice in vain by killing Bubba. He had let grief twist and bend his mind, rage empower and drive him. He knew his father would never want to see his children turn on each other as Tubba and Chubba had done, and Clubbette and Tubba as well. Killing Clubbette would not make his father rest easy in his tomb. Tubba had let his father's last sacrifice been in vain, but was determined to not betray him again. Still, if she returned to threaten the Clubba Kingdom, he would show no mercy. He had begrudgingly allowed Clubbar to stem the flow of blood from Clubbette's many wounds, before chasing her off in the north direction, watching her limp and stagger past the damaged headstones, past the wreckage of the two crashed airships, and vanish beyond a ridge. Tubba did not care where she went, be it to Ice Land of the Mushroom Kingdom, or back to the Waffle Kingdom where she had spent her early years. The lands were now lit by starlight, the clouds having vanished along with the Koopas. Tubba, if he squinted, could barely make out the silhouttes of the airships above the barely-visible trees of Forever Forest, the plumes of smoke hidden by the moonless night sky. He wanted to hurry back to the Castle, where the Clubban airships were now docking, and pursue the airships back to the Koopa Kingdom, but two more pressing errands had shown up. Clubbar and Tubba had sifted through the wreckage of the airships to find a blackened and battered Lukki underneath the rubble. He was critically hurt, yet nothing would kill him immediately. He was only in danger of dying from blood loss, for his burns, while severe, did not threaten his life. The Lakitu even regained consciousness to explain that he was the only one in his airship, and that they should not bother looking for other survivors. It was then that Tubba realized that the victory had been without death, for even the people aboard Morton's airship had been teleported off. Life truly was a beautiful thing, one that he always regretted stealing from Bubba. The second pressing errand was how Clubbar had stood aside and unbothered as Tubba lay underneath Clubbette, seconds away from dying. Despite crying for help from the former Commander of the Clubban Armies, Clubbar had remained stock-still and made no move to help him. On the way past the damaged graveyard complex and to the front of the Castle, carrying the unconscious Lukki, Tubba found time to bring it up. "Hey, Clubbar..." Tubba began awkwardly, quickening his pace to walk side by side with the elderly Clubba, "why didn't you save me when I cried for help?" Clubbar didn't bother turning around or answering immediately, carrying Lukki underneath his left arm gingerly. When he did speak, it was an old, wizened croak. "Your father would've never let me save his son from a battle he could still win." "But you did. Against Laff." Tubba pointed out, wondering what Clubbar was talking about. "Laff was different." Clubbar explained, keeping his eyes resolutely on the silhoutte of the Castle ahead. "Win or lose, we would've fallen to the Mushroom-Beans. You would've been captured or killed as a high-ranking Clubba. It was an effective defeat. Against Clubbette, there was no greater motive. It was win or lose, and you could still win." Tubba had no response except a nod. He agreed with Clubbar's assessment of both situations, and he had beaten Clubbette in the end. He slowed his pace, letting Clubbar draw his head. Sometimes, others had more faith in you than you did. When they reached the Clubba Castle, Tubba could not supress a smile at the reckless abandon and camaraderie being displayed in the Entrance Hall. Every Clubba who had known what was going on was in the Entrance Hall, be it with a tankard of Chuckola Cola or other beverages, celebrating a battle well won. The battlers had received the trio with glee, but it soon turned to shock once they saw how badly Lukki was injured. Parin refused to let anyone else carry the injured Lakitu down the hallway, with all of the other battlers, even Xavier, joining the Duplighost in the fear for Lukki's wellbeing. The rest of the battlers went off to the Medical Ward with Lukki, giving Tubba a clean shot at what he wanted to accomplish, alone. Briefly talking with some high-ranking Clubban generals, it appeared that Junior's airship was the least damaged, and that he could overtake the heavily damaged airships of Ludwig and Roy well before dawn. The battlers had done enough, having fought beside him through thick and thin. The final hunt of Ludwig would be his, to set down a new border for the Clubba Kingdom. A new dawn was approaching for the Clubba Kingdom, and Tubba was determined to be at the head of it.